The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

robindch

> It is nonsense to say God regretted anything since God views time
> as a single instance.

2,000 years ago, the gods were up in the sky and Jesus flew up there when he died, same as Mohammad did a few centuries later. Believers could explain their deity's non-presence by saying that he was unreachable, being beyond the clouds, leaving him free to sit and watch the earth go by, feeling emotion as things happened.

Now that everybody knows that god isn't sitting up in the sky, the religious have had to push their deities further away, by saying that the deities live in "other dimensions" and who are therefore "atemporal" or "omnitemporal". Three convenient excuses which didn't need to exist 2,000 years ago, when putting gods up in the sky placed them securely beyond inquiry.

Same thing with creationism -- everybody was a young earth creationist 2,000 years ago, but as knowledge has increased, a thick undergrowth of variations upon YEC has evolved, so that people can (in their own minds at least) support both the evidence of their own eyes in varying degrees, while still allowing some unreachable corner of somewhere where their gods can live their unexamined lives.

God's apologists are very unconvincing when you think about it...

Schuhart

Wicknight wrote:

hold up, before JC starts yipping on about how "evolutionists" are arguing amount themselves.

But JC is one of us now. Did you miss his post earlier?

J C wrote:

Both Evolution and Creation COULD have been used by God

In all seriousness, I’m utterly open to the idea that the point I’m making is not valid. But I don’t see a need to stop discussion and whisper ‘not in front of the theists’. JC may well distort what we say, but such distortion can be exposed without too much difficulty.

Wicknight wrote:

It is nonsense to say God regretted anything since God views time as a single instance.

That’s fine if we accept God has no interest in having a close and dirty relationship with humans. If we assume that he does, then there’s a relationship that has to be (imperfectly) explained by humans.

The argument you are making, to my mind, takes us into broader country that whether evolution is or isn’t consistent with the Bible. As we know, a theist might accept evolution but still hold to a belief in a personal God. I think the argument you are making is valid, but belongs to a different discussion, which is the difficulty in envisaging a God with a reason to want to send us any messages.

robindch wrote:

Now that everybody knows that god isn't sitting up in the sky, the religious have had to push their deities further away, by saying that the deities live in "other dimensions" and who are therefore "atemporal" or "omnitemporal". Three convenient excuses which didn't need to exist 2,000 years ago, when putting gods up in the sky placed them securely beyond inquiry.

There’s a theist scientist called Bruno Guiderdoni who expresses this idea quite well in some of his writings. (He’s the kind of theist who doesn’t try to deny the reality of the physical world). He describes how, during that Islamic scientific golden age, astronomers calculated that God’s throne was 120 million miles from Earth and contrasts that with the possibility that the creation of the universe might ultimately be explained by some of these speculations about fluctuations in probabilities, thus eliminating any practical need for a God. Despite that amount of a grip on the subject matter, he is still a practicing Muslim – which I think illustrates how religion can ultimately be compartmentalised so as to insulate it completely from scrutiny.

Giblet

J C wrote:

Big bang advocates believe the supposed cosmic explosion of ‘The Big Bang’ is responsible for the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation we observe.
‘Big Bang’ Scientists have long predicted that galaxy clusters in the universe would deflect the CMB radiation, creating “shadows” in the observable radiation. But when the University of Huntsville scientists measured this effect, they did not find any strong “shadows” as expected.
Equally last year, the same researchers published results of a study using WMAP data to look for evidence of "lensing" effects which should have also been seen, but weren't, if the microwave background was a Big Bang remnant.
This indicates that the CMB radiation may not be “behind” distant galaxies, but is much closer instead. Since the big bang interpretation REQUIRES the CMB radiation to be behind the farthest galaxies, this new discovery is a devastating blow to the Big Bang Model, and indicates that the CMB radiation cannot be leftover radiation from a Big Bang. Of course, this isn’t the only evidence against a big bang.”

They did find shadows. Two reasons why they didn't get the results as expected. First, the observer is closer to the light than the background. Secondly, the radiation isn't as far out as expected. These alone don't prove much, and especially don't disprove the big bang or the age of the universe as shadows still occuring, still means the galaxies are in front. Also, gravitational lensing has been observed, although weaker than expected, still means there is a huge mass between the CMBR and the cluster. Why would you throw out these facts in order to be able to say "NO SHADOWS, NO LENSING" when in fact both have been observed?
Remember, if the word "may" is used, it probably doesn't count for much.


EDIT: Oh and what I originally came to post, seeing as the kanas thing is hotting up again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg

Good lecture about the previous case and how ID and Creationists twist facts, but ultimatly get shot down.

robindch

> during that Islamic scientific golden age, astronomers calculated
> that God’s throne was 120 million miles from Earth

Interesting -- I didn't know that and a quick search on google didn't turn anything up anything about it either. Do you know any webpage that has more details on how this figure was arrived at?

Schuhart

robindch wrote:

Do you know any webpage that has more details on how this figure was arrived at?

All I have is this article by Bruno Guiderdoni, where he says

In the Middle Ages,the distance to God's throne was “measured” by the Arab astronomer al-Farghani to 120 million km, under simple assumptions on the properties of the planetary spheres in the paradigm of the Ptolemaic cosmology. This ``spatial horizon'' was eventually evacuated by the scientific revolution of the Renaissance and the emergence of the Newtonian paradigm. In a simplistic interpretation of the standard Big--Bang model, which has been rather fashionable during the last decades, God takes place at the horizon of the singularity t=0 and at the ``particle horizon'' located 15 billion light-years from us. Now, it is indeed possible that quantum cosmology will evacuate the notion of an initial singularity. The universe might have emerged as a quantum fluctuation of the vacuum.

Zombrex

Schuhart wrote:

That’s fine if we accept God has no interest in having a close and dirty relationship with humans. If we assume that he does, then there’s a relationship that has to be (imperfectly) explained by humans.

That point doesn't really matter. God, as defined by the Abrahamic religions, can still have a relationship with us. It just wouldn't have one like what is described in Genesis or the other books of the Bible.

Schuhart wrote:

The argument you are making, to my mind, takes us into broader country that whether evolution is or isn’t consistent with the Bible.

Well the reason I brought it up is that, even ignoring the issue of evolution, the Bible cannot be a literal account of the word of God, because what it describes is a paradox.

The issue of evolution has always been rather secondary to the real issue, that being the scientific method of exploring the world around us verses blindly accepting Biblical truth.

The whole crux of the Creationists argument, whether they are talking about evolution, the age of the Earth, or the size of the universe, is that the Bible, specifically Genesis, has to be a literal account of God, his actions and his relationship with us.

Evolution is just the current whipping boy, but you could equally pick anything from radio-meteric dating to the theories of light. There are very few areas of science that have not already, or will not eventually, run into trouble with the Biblical literalists.

The fact that the Bible contradicts itself on the very fundamental nature of God Himself ultimately shows that it is not literally true, and as such the arguments against science and the scientific method instantly melt away.

If Genesis is not literally true there is no reason to say that the Earth must be 6,000 years old, or that there must have been a world wide flood some 4,000 years ago. No one but Young Earth Biblical Creationists believe this stuff happened in the first place anyway.

So accepting that gives Abrahamic theists a lot of wiggle room to accept science along side their religion, and as I pointed out to JC and Wolfsbane, most Christians don't actually view the Bible as the literal word of God, but instead as a book written by humans attempting to understand God in the same limited way they themselves attempt to understand God. Humans who, like them, are capable of error mistakes and misjudgements. That might be difficult for JC or Wolfsbane or BC to understand, as a literal Bible seems to be the fundamental aspect of their faith in God, but for most Christians around the world it seems rather bizarre to take the idea of a literal Bible so seriously. At the end of the day it is faith in God, not the Bible, that is the important bit.

This isn't an argument against God, in anyway. It is an argument against accepting what is written in the Bible is an perfect, accurate, description of God and his relationship with humans. That clearly cannot be valid.

Schuhart

Wicknight wrote:

God, as defined by the Abrahamic religions, can still have a relationship with us. It just wouldn't have one like what is described in Genesis or the other books of the Bible.

I think the point is that any human description of the relationship is going to end up dumbing down the concept, because the nature of that relationship is simply beyond human understanding. So, inevitably, a theist has to fall back on some kind of human concept, say, ‘it’s like God is your parents, and you are a child, and he’s trying to guide you but let you find your own feet at the same time’ or whatever. That said, I’d agree that meandering Abrahamic scriptures hardly qualify as ‘dumbing down’, particularly when you consider how many people make a career out of explaining them.

The alternative is to simply state that hardly anything useful can be said about the nature of God or our relationship to him, because it’s beyond human understanding. That’s probably true, but accepting that idea leaves all organised religions out in the cold. A (non-literal) theist presumably needs to accept that whatever scripture he is taking as sound does make an attempt to describe God, and that any contradictions are just part and parcel of trying to describe God in human terms.

Wicknight wrote:

The fact that the Bible contradicts itself on the very fundamental nature of God Himself ultimately shows that it is not literally true, and as such the arguments against science and the scientific method instantly melt away.

If Genesis is not literally true there is no reason to say that the Earth must be 6,000 years old, or that there must have been a world wide flood some 4,000 years ago.

I think you’ve put it well there. The significance of the contradictions is that the text cannot be seen as literal. Theists might take that as simply reflecting that any human account of God can only be imperfect. Atheists might take it as evidence that the authors are trying, and failing, to make sense of the world around them. But no-one should be taking the text as literal.

Scofflaw

I still find it interesting that Creationists are happy enough to accept that when Christ wished to explain how God relates to man, he used parables (metaphors and stories) - but when it comes to explaining how God created the world there's no way that the account can be anything other than literal...

The generally accepted reason for Jesus teaching in parables is that it allowed him to explain rather complicated concepts in a way that would be accessible to anyone.

Is creating the world somehow simpler than how God relates to man? Why would one expect people to directly understand how the world was created when they weren't expected to directly understand how God's forgiveness works - surely people have more experience of forgiveness than of creation? Were parables something only Jesus is allowed to use?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zombrex

Schuhart wrote:

I think the point is that any human description of the relationship is going to end up dumbing down the concept, because the nature of that relationship is simply beyond human understanding. So, inevitably, a theist has to fall back on some kind of human concept, say, ‘it’s like God is your parents, and you are a child, and he’s trying to guide you but let you find your own feet at the same time’ or whatever. That said, I’d agree that meandering Abrahamic scriptures hardly qualify as ‘dumbing down’, particularly when you consider how many people make a career out of explaining them.

In the end that doesn't really matter. If the Bible is a dumbed down version of Gods relationship with us it is still not accurate or literal. In fact that is what a lot of theists actually believe, that the Bible is an attempt by humans to understand something they could not understand and as such is as flawed as anything else humans create.

Schuhart wrote:

That’s probably true, but accepting that idea leaves all organised religions out in the cold.

Well not really. It leaves the arrogance of organised religion, the idea that they can accurately understand and record exactly God's wishes, out in the cold. But it could be argued that that isn't such a bad thing.

Schuhart

Wicknight wrote:

It leaves the arrogance of organised religion, the idea that they can accurately understand and record exactly God's wishes, out in the cold. But it could be argued that that isn't such a bad thing.

I'm not particularly seeing it as a bad thing. It's just that a natural consequence of accepting that we can say nothing useful about God is that there's absolutely no way of telling if we should queue up for consecrated bread on a Sunday or pray five times facing a fallen meteorite or do whatever the followers of John Frum do to express their veneration. Organised religion seems to assume that, at some level, we can make a decent stab of understanding the divine will - even if its only a Topsy and Tim level of understanding.

Zombrex

Schuhart wrote:

It's just that a natural consequence of accepting that we can say nothing useful about God is that there's absolutely no way of telling if we should queue up for consecrated bread on a Sunday or pray five times facing a fallen meteorite or do whatever the followers of John Frum do to express their veneration.

You are right, there isn't. It then comes back to a question of what you believe in yourself.

I think a lot of the problem with organised religion is that it is full of people who are looking for something or someone to tell them what they should believe in. That is why people turn to the Bible in the first place, to tell them what they should believe, and they should do.

The problem is is that the only works if the assumption that the Bible is actually describing what they should believe and what they should do, is true in the first place.

Personally I think it is much better to read the Bible and decide for yourself, freely, what you think makes sense and what doesn't make sense to you, based on your own beliefs and morality. Far to many people hinge their beliefs on what they are told they should believe.

Schuhart wrote:

Organised religion seems to assume that, at some level, we can make a decent stab of understanding the divine will - even if its only a Topsy and Tim level of understanding.

Well it would, wouldn't it, since the power of organised religion comes from the religion claiming to be able to represent God's wishes, and feeding the populations desire to know things in absolute fashion. If a religion admitted that it actually isn't sure about something then this power would be lost. It is in the religions own self interest to continue to claim that they, and they alone, accurately describe the will and wishes of God.

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

Well it would, wouldn't it, since the power of organised religion comes from the religion claiming to be able to represent God's wishes, and feeding the populations desire to know things in absolute fashion. If a religion admitted that it actually isn't sure about something then this power would be lost. It is in the religions own self interest to continue to claim that they, and they alone, accurately describe the will and wishes of God.

God is ineffable, unknowable, moves in mysterious ways, and is far beyond human understanding.

But we know he hates fags.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zombrex

Scofflaw wrote:

God is ineffable, unknowable, moves in mysterious ways, and is far beyond human understanding.

But we know he hates fags.

cordially,
Scofflaw

robindch

> Personally I think it is much better to read the Bible and decide
> for yourself, freely, what you think makes sense and what
> doesn't make sense to you, based on your own beliefs and morality.

That's why the bible is such a successful book -- there's something in there for everybody, from the knuckle-headed wanting to know that the earth was created some time after the invention of glue, to the refined sensibilities of people who want to know that god lives in another space-time dimension.

I was hoping that I could coin the phrase "biblical relativism" to describe the act of picking and choosing what bits you want to believe. But I see I've been beaten to it. Oh well.

> But we know he hates fags.

The shrimps, the shrimps. Don't forget the abominable shrimps!

Schuhart

Wicknight wrote:

If a religion admitted that it actually isn't sure about something then this power would be lost.

If a religion admitted that it wasn't sure about some things, then its power would be greatly diluted, but not eliminated. But admission that it can't actually know anything about the nature of God means that the whole enterprise is gone.

Its the difference between saying scripture is divinely inspired, but not literal, to saying that no-one can tell if there is a God who actually wants us to take any notice of it at all.

I don't think there's any fundemental disagreement between us. I'm really just saying that a consequence of an unknowable God is no religion. Religion depends on us being able to figure out, in some way, stuff we should do to fufil the divine plan.

Scofflaw

Schuhart wrote:

If a religion admitted that it wasn't sure about some things, then its power would be greatly diluted, but not eliminated. But admission that it can't actually know anything about the nature of God means that the whole enterprise is gone.

Its the difference between saying scripture is divinely inspired, but not literal, to saying that no-one can tell if there is a God who actually wants us to take any notice of it at all.

I don't think there's any fundemental disagreement between us. I'm really just saying that a consequence of an unknowable God is no religion. Religion depends on us being able to figure out, in some way, stuff we should do to fufil the divine plan.

Is there room out there, do you think, for a church which employs pastors whose sole job is to congratulate you, and remind you that whatever the heck it is you're doing, it's probably God's plan, so keep right on doing that thing?

Maybe weekly 'confession', and at them end you get patted on the head (or other body part, depending on age and gender*)?

*no point in not making it like a real religion, after all

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Scofflaw wrote:

God is ineffable, unknowable, moves in mysterious ways, and is far beyond human understanding.

But we know he hates fags.

cordially,
Scofflaw

And figs

Zombrex

Schuhart wrote:

I don't think there's any fundemental disagreement between us. I'm really just saying that a consequence of an unknowable God is no religion.

Not exactly.

Science has long recognised that it can never know for sure the exact nature of the universe and that ultimately it can only attempt to get as close as it can in how it models the universe. Recognising that fact doesn't make science pointless, because it isn't a requirement to know the exact nature of the universe for science to be worth anything in the first place.

There isn't really a reason why the same principle cannot be applied to theists and their relationship with God (ie what one would call religion).

Of course the issue would be that one of the primary purposes of traditional organised religion in the first place is to give followers this sense of certainty about existence and nature around them. That is quite a powerful attraction, and one that could not be easily disregarded.

So this would not be possible without a change in what people expect from their religion, and I'm not sure if religion would still hold quite the same appeal as before. But it doesn't necessarily mean that religion would disappear completely.

Scofflaw

bluewolf wrote:

And figs

Do you know, it took me a moment to work that out! Clever!

cordially,
Scofflaw

JimiTime

Hi Guys. I was talking to someone yesterday, who is not a scientist, but who is into science, i.e. reads up on it etc. He said that the very fundamental of science is 'Cause and Effect'. Is this true?

pH

JimiTime wrote:

Hi Guys. I was talking to someone yesterday, who is not a scientist, but who is into science, i.e. reads up on it etc. He said that the very fundamental of science is 'Cause and Effect'. Is this true?

The scientific method involves the following basic facets:

• Observation. A constant feature of scientific inquiry.
  
• Description. Information must be reliable, i.e., replicable (repeatable) as well as valid (relevant to the inquiry).
  
• Prediction. Information must be valid for observations past, present, and future of given phenomena, i.e., purported "one shot" phenomena do not give rise to the capability to predict, nor to the ability to repeat an experiment.
  
• Control. Actively and fairly sampling the range of possible occurrences, whenever possible and proper, as opposed to the passive acceptance of opportunistic data, is the best way to control or counterbalance the risk of empirical bias.
  
• Falsifiability, or the elimination of plausible alternatives. This is a gradual process that requires repeated experiments by multiple researchers who must be able to replicate results in order to corroborate them. This requirement, one of the most frequently contended, leads to the following: All hypotheses and theories are in principle subject to disproof. Thus, there is a point at which there might be a consensus about a particular hypothesis or theory, yet it must in principle remain tentative. As a body of knowledge grows and a particular hypothesis or theory repeatedly brings predictable results, confidence in the hypothesis or theory increases.
  
• Causal explanation. Many scientists and theorists on scientific method argue that concepts of causality are not obligatory to science, but are in fact well-defined only under particular, admittedly widespread conditions. Under these conditions the following requirements are generally regarded as important to scientific understanding:
  
  • Identification of causes. Identification of the causes of a particular phenomenon to the best achievable extent.
  • Covariation of events. The hypothesized causes must correlate with observed effects.
  • Time-order relationship. The hypothesized causes must precede the observed effects in time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

Zombrex

JimiTime wrote:

Hi Guys. I was talking to someone yesterday, who is not a scientist, but who is into science, i.e. reads up on it etc. He said that the very fundamental of science is 'Cause and Effect'. Is this true?

As pH points out, not exactly.

Cause and effect is an property of the model of the universe we have constructed, based on how we observe time to function. But it would be incorrect to assume that cause and effect is a fundamental requirement of existence.

As funny as it sounds it might be possible that something happens without a cause, or that cause comes after effect.

Ultimately how cause and effect happens is constrained by the nature of time within our universe. If time was different then the nature of cause and effect would probably be different.

JimiTime

from a scientifically educated view and on the basis of what science currently knows. Do you think there'll ever be a scientific explaination for the Cause of the ball of cosmos that went boom, i.e. the big bang?

Zombrex

JimiTime wrote:

from a scientifically educated view and on the basis of what science currently knows. Do you think there'll ever be a scientific explaination for the Cause of the ball of cosmos that went boom, i.e. the big bang?

From a scientifically educated view and on the basis of what science currently knows the more honest and truthful answer to that question is - No idea

We are not in a position to determine if it is possible to study the nature of reality before the big bang because we have no idea what the nature of reality before the big bang actually was.

We don't know what matter or time were like before the big bang, or even if they existed at all.

Without time causality doesn't exist, so even asking can we know what caused the big bang is a flawed question because we don't know if time existed in any form to say that causality existed.

Schuhart

Scofflaw wrote:

Is there room out there, do you think, for a church which employs pastors whose sole job is to congratulate you, and remind you that whatever the heck it is you're doing, it's probably God's plan, so keep right on doing that thing?

Yes, but don’t be seduced by the Dark Side of the Force.

bluewolf wrote:

And figs

I, erm, didn’t get it.

Wicknight wrote:

So this would not be possible without a change in what people expect from their religion, and I'm not sure if religion would still hold quite the same appeal as before. But it doesn't necessarily mean that religion would disappear completely.

I think it depends on a matter of degree. If we take it that we just don’t know, then organised religion can offer nothing. If we take it there is a God, and the various religions that we know are flawed methods of communicating with him, then religion might cling on. I actually think, intuitively, that’s the direction that many people are going in – seeing their own traditional religion as simply a pattern that can be followed, no better or worse than any other.

I’d just float the idea, though, that an unknowable God is a different proposition to an unknowable physical world. It might be impossible to make any statement with absolute certainty. But many statements can be made with reasonable probability. I’m not sure we can do much to pick what statement relating to divine will is more probable.

Schuhart

Schuhart wrote:

I, erm, didn’t get it.

One day jesus was hungry and found a fig tree with no figs. He got very cross at the fig tree and cursed it.

http://godhatesfigs.com/

JimiTime

pH wrote:

The scientific method involves the following basic facets:

• Observation. A constant feature of scientific inquiry.
  
  The universe had a beginning. How it began (I.E. How the ball of cosmos came about), unknown.
  
• Description. Information must be reliable, i.e., replicable (repeatable) as well as valid (relevant to the inquiry).
  
  Has speciation been replicable? Has it been replicated that a being with gills, forms lungs? Has it been replicated, that a being with fins, develops legs? Has it been replicated, that precise mechanics can occur accidentally?
  
• Prediction. Information must be valid for observations past, present, and future of given phenomena, i.e., purported "one shot" phenomena do not give rise to the capability to predict, nor to the ability to repeat an experiment.
  
  Was there more than 1 life creating big bang? or is it a case of, not thats known?
  
• Control. Actively and fairly sampling the range of possible occurrences, whenever possible and proper, as opposed to the passive acceptance of opportunistic data, is the best way to control or counterbalance the risk of empirical bias.
  
  Again, not adaptation, but has speciation occurred and been observed. see above?
  
• Falsifiability, or the elimination of plausible alternatives. This is a gradual process that requires repeated experiments by multiple researchers who must be able to replicate results in order to corroborate them. This requirement, one of the most frequently contended, leads to the following: All hypotheses and theories are in principle subject to disproof. Thus, there is a point at which there might be a consensus about a particular hypothesis or theory, yet it must in principle remain tentative. As a body of knowledge grows and a particular hypothesis or theory repeatedly brings predictable results, confidence in the hypothesis or theory increases.
  
  
  
• Causal explanation. Many scientists and theorists on scientific method argue that concepts of causality are not obligatory to science, but are in fact well-defined only under particular, admittedly widespread conditions. Under these conditions the following requirements are generally regarded as important to scientific understanding:
  
  • Identification of causes. Identification of the causes of a particular phenomenon to the best achievable extent.
  • Covariation of events. The hypothesized causes must correlate with observed effects.
  • Time-order relationship. The hypothesized causes must precede the observed effects in time.

Is there a Cause to the ball of space cosmos that went boom, i.e. the big bang.

As I'm sure most of you know, I am a Christian and have a Christian view on creation, so I'm just probing.

Zombrex

JimiTime wrote:

The universe had a beginning. How it began (I.E. How the ball of cosmos came about), unknown.

Correct, thought that isn't quite what pH meant by observation.

"The universe had a beginning" is not an observation, it is a theory based on observation, such as the expansion of the universe that we observe today.

JimiTime wrote:

Has speciation been replicable?

Well speciation isn't a single thing. It is the end result of a very very large number of smaller stages.

Experiments that observe and test theories about how these smaller changes take place are repeatable, otherwise they would not be considered scientific.

Basically what repeatable means is that if scientists A sets up an experiment to test a hypothesis (say something like a mutation in bacteria A under ultravoliet light will be 10% less effective than in bacteria then it must be possible for a different scientists, scientists B, to set the experiment up in exactly the same way and come out with the same result.

If this doesn't happen then one cannot trust scientist A's conclusions because something unknown to scientists A could be effecting his results and not effecting scientists B (or vice versa).

To be sure that your conclusions match your experiment it must be possible for others to do the same experiment and come to the same conclusion.

This is why it is always stress on this thread that the personal opinions of scientists don't matter in the grand scheme of things. It is the collective system that matters. If a scientists holds to a certain theory about something then it is on him to be able to demonstrate to everyone else the support for this theory. Every other scientist in the world should be able to do his experiment and come to the same result.

JimiTime wrote:

Has it been replicated, that precise mechanics can occur accidentally?

Yes. Evolutionary models have been constructed in a scientific way that produce replicatable verifiable results.

JimiTime wrote:

Was there more than 1 life creating big bang? or is it a case of, not thats known?

The existence of alternative universes has been theorised based on mathematical models, by the nature of theses universes, if they exist, is unknown. We certainly cannot tell if other universes exist with life in them.

JimiTime wrote:

Again, not adaptation, but has speciation occurred and been observed. see above?

Yes. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

But the issue becomes more complicated by the fact that a "species" can be difficult to define. Creationists often claim that evolutionary speciation has not actually happened by simply defining a species differently.

JimiTime wrote:

Is there a Cause to the ball of space cosmos that went boom, i.e. the big bang.

We don't know.

JimiTime wrote:

As I'm sure most of you know, I am a Christian and have a Christian view on creation, so I'm just probing.

Probe away

Science doesn't have anything to hide. It is a requirement of science to simply say "we don't know" to something they honestly don't know.

While Creationists often jump on this and claim it is a weakness of science (after all Creationists with the Bible claim to have all the answers) scientists don't view it as a weakness. In fact they view it as a requirement.

robindch

Duck born with four legs:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/6371901.stm

I look forward to JC explaining how this is completely non-beneficial!

JC?

Zombrex

robindch wrote:

Duck born with four legs:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/6371901.stm

I look forward to JC explaining how this is completely non-beneficial!

JC?

Clearly it is happening along God's path of predetermined genetic diversity since otherwise any mutation would cause the animal to you know, explode. Or combust. Or melt. Or something equally nasty.